Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

A lot of fun.

A Disappointing Continuation

The acting in this movie is really good.

I started watching soap operas when I was 7 years old, it started with All My Children in 1987, and then progressed to One Life to Live and Days of Our Lives.Days of Our Lives was one of the most frustrating shows that I ever watched, and now I see where they get their annoyances from. I watched Days of Our lives for nearly 20 years, but had to give it up after James Scott as EJ DiMera left the show. Why bother to watch without him? I started watching Dark Shadows two or so weeks ago due to a marathon that was on TV. My mother used to watch it when it first aired, and my father often watched it when I was an adolescent.I must admit that I was drawn to the series, even though I did not expect to be. I am currently on episode 314. Many of the episodes are quite good and entertaining and just short of being scary.One of the things that bothers me so much is the pace. It literally takes forever for a storyline to play out, the same things will be going on for like 80 episodes in a row. This reminds me so much of the dragged out pacing on Days of Our lives, only not quite as bad. DOOL can take up to 10 months to end a story! I can barely stand it when someone is just on the cusp of finding out something crucial, and of course someone bursts in or the phone rings or they simply decide not to pursue a lead. Much of the time to prevent a storyline from ending, ridiculous things will occur to stall it. You will have characters beating around the bush so badly that you want to beat THEM! I do wonder if Days of Our lives was loosely modeled after dark shadows. The DiMera family lives in a home quite similar to the Collins family home. It's a big mansion filled with antiques and a big front door which leads to a foyer with two large double doors. There is a staircase in the foyer and large portraits.Unfortunately, if it was, DOOL inherited the worst traits of Dark Shadows, including the sci-fi story lines that ended about 10 years ago.Dark Shadows is by no means a bad show, but it's bad for those with anxiety.

I am old enough to be one of the kids who dashed home every afternoon to watch my favorite vampire. I am still just as much in love with it. In watching it again, I realize just how gloriously awful it was - over the top acting, really strained dialogue, cheesy sets, flubbed lines and yes the occasional boom mike in the shot. It is just wonderful, and each scene done in one take. The difference between the series and "the movie" - the series took itself very seriously. It wasn't intentionally campy - they played it straight and full throttle. If Ed Wood had done a soap opera it would have looked a lot like Dark Shadows, although the original DS did have talent. I don't understand how Burton/Depp missed the mark on this, especially since they claim to be fans. The "horror" of Frid's Barnabas was that he looked just like anyone else - you couldn't see the monster inside until it was too late.

Back in 1966 most daytime soaps were dreary, predictable dramas about illegitimate babies and amnesia. But when Dan Curtis conceived of Dark Shadows as a Gothic romance he introduced something entirely new and different. Early episodes revolved around Victoria Winters, a young woman in search of her own identity. As an infant she'd been dumped on the steps of a New York foundling home, and now 20-something years later she still didn't know who her parents were. Could she be a long-lost relative of the strange, reclusive Collins family of Maine? That was the big question that DS explored but never fully answered. But Victoria's quest led her to accept a job as governess to a neurotic little boy, David Collins, and to live at the mysterious, 40-room family mansion. Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard---played by screen legend Joan Bennett---bore an uncanny resemblance to Vicki and might even have been her actual bio mother. But by 1967 producer Dan Curtis had steered the show in a wholly new, i.e. supernatural direction!To boost sagging ratings he introduced David's mother, Laura Collins, an immortal phoenix who, since the days of the pharaohs, had been dying by fire every century or so, only to rise each time from her own ashes. And then there was the ghost of Josette Collins, beautiful but tragic bride who fell to her death (in 1796) from the cliff known as Widow's Hill. And finally there was Barnabas Collins, played by Canadian actor Jonathan Frid. Barnabas was meant to be a short-term villain but Frid soon became too popular to be "staked." So he evolved into the reluctant, guilt-ridden vampire/hero. Dr. Julia Hoffman---the Van Helsing character originally brought in to destroy him---ended up falling in love with Barnabas instead. For the rest of the show, she tried continually to cure him through "weird science," often with very bizarre results! Before long, Dark Shadows featured a flashback to the year 1795 to show how Barnabas had become "the thing" he was. Victoria Winters was the time traveler, our bridge to the past, and while there she met the 18th-century Collins family. Seems that back in the beginning, Barnabas was caught in a love triangle between his sweet fiancée Josette and his discarded and diabolical mistress, Angelique. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Angelique certainly proved that old truism. When she couldn't have Barnabas' love she cursed him instead. He was bitten by a vampire bat, after which he "died" and the next night rose as one of the living dead. Josette ended up a suicide, and Barnabas strangled the witchy Angelique with his own hands. But Angelique refused to stay dead and kept returning for as long as Dark Shadows was on the air. Beautiful but vengeful, she tormented Barnabas over the centuries. She interfered whenever he met a new Josette lookalike, always causing pain and suffering to her rival. Lara Parker, a young but more-than-competent actress, played Angelique with great panache and the ratings were never higher than when she appeared on screen.By 1968 DS had become the most popular show on daytime. It featured wonderful character actors, many of whom played multiple roles. Grayson Hall was especially memorable but my own favorite will always be Thayer David ("Matt Morgan," "Ben Stokes," "Prof.Stokes," "Sandor" and "Count Petofi.") And then once again the show gave us another flashback, this time to the year 1897. Now the action centered around a brand-new character, Quentin Collins. Quentin was portrayed by the tall, handsome, blue-eyed David Selby, who became a big hit with the fans. Quentin was a ne'er-do-well, a cad and a womanizer. He had a mad wife locked away in the attic, an affair with the wife's maid, and a brief fling with Angelique herself! He also had a sharp wit, the writers giving him hilarious lines to deliver. Predictably he became cursed as Barnabas had been, but in Quentin's case it was with the curse of lycanthropy (werewolf-ism).Dark Shadows should have lasted forever but sadly, it didn't. After the 1897 adventure the writing declined. Perhaps Dan Curtis ran out of ideas, or perhaps his staff did. Who knows? Subsequent story lines---the Leviathans, Parallel Time, the 1840 Flashback---never measured up to previous successes. In 1971 ABC pulled the plug on America's first Gothic Horror Soap, to the dismay of its fans. But DS still lives on in our memory and on DVD, in collectible memorabilia from the 60's and in the various novels based on this iconic show. There have also been two DS movies and a short-lived 1991 revival show, as well as a soon-to-be-released movie starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas. Dark Shadows is like Barnabas Collins...one of the true immortals!

This has to be one of my all time favourite shows! It is true that it is somewhat dated in production, but when one considers that it was produced in the same manner of the soaps of the day, it is outstanding. There are some flaws such as the microphone appearing, the sets shaking, or a missed line, but they do little to detract from the total effect. Many of the lines have become memorable quotes, and I even found some tee shirts with some on them at Zazzle.com! The characters were great, and the writing was excellent. I would love to see a truly great remake of the series without the limitations of the previous filming era, but I doubt it will ever happen.